Insights
- Solo saw the market share of its margarine brand decline during the 1996-2006 period.
- Consumers embraced alternative products like olive oil and “new” cooking techniques like wokking and steaming. Inevitably, the market segment of cooking fats shrunk.
- Solo struggled with an image issue. Consumers associated the brand with traditional cooking. Rich in taste, but unctuous.
- Consumers often have neither the time nor the inspiration to prepare a fresh meal. They turn to the web for daily inspiration, easy recipes and simple cooking tips.
Objectives
- Reposition the Solo brand: from “a facilitator to bake meat” to “a good and tasty ingredient for a variety of recipes”.
- Boost the sales of the Solo brand by
- cementing the loyalty of existing customers;
- convincing new consumers (=young families);
- commissioning brand ambassadors.
Over 50,000 members use the platform intensively, which makes them potential brand ambassadors
Ideas
- The repositioning took shape at the beginning of 2007 with a new claim for the Solo brand: “Solo, your everyday inspiring cooking partner”.
- Create a “Solo Open Kitchen” digital platform to bring the new brand claim to life.
- Strategically, this meant
- a radical shift from traditional media to a media mix built around a digital platform.
- storytelling about cooking rather than product-driven communication
- storylines determine the choice and content of the communication channels.
- a customer centric philosophy throughout all activities. Solo positions itself as a cooking companion eager to share culinary inspiration with the consumer. An equal dialogue is key.
- building a community with an active role for the consumer which stimulates them to become ambassadors for the Solo brand.
- Set up a phased customer marketing programme — rather than one-shot campaigns — as we aim for a long-term and profitable relationship with the consumer.
- An ever-evolving customer programme deployed…
- 2007: launch of the online activation platform on solo.be to acquire a solid optin database.
- 2008: transition of the activation platform to a lively online community. More memberships, better dialogue, more user generated content.
- 2009: focus on maximised community interaction and direct sales conversion. Motivate members to participate frequently and become brand ambassadors. Better sales conversion by offering e-coupons for Solo Light (Sept-Dec)
- 2010: further increase user frequency and conversion. Maximise the reach of the platform by creating a Facebook group and offering content on both iPhone and iPad.
Result?
- By closely monitoring consumer behavior, we make sure that every optimization of the platform leads to extra conversion and more return. Which means: better interactions, lower bounce rates and higher inflow of registrations.
- Expansion in yearly brand contacts: 4,1 mio visits / 18,5 mio page views
- A strong RM programme keeps the monthly dialogue with over 210,000 consumers going.
- The online community with 105,000 Belgian members contributes actively: already 9,400 user recipes posted (about 75% of total!).
- Interactions with the brand are getting more and more relevant as we speak – over 52,000 members very actively use the platform and are thus potential brand ambassadors.
- The reach of the digital platform and the brand extends: over 800,000 favorites saved in personal cooking journals, a total of 30,000 downloads of the Solo iPhone & iPad applications, and approximately 20,000 printed recipes per month.
- Research has shown that the Solo Open Kitchen platform has an evident impact on brand perception and sales. Many of the households who bought Solo Light Liquid used the e-coupon we provided on the site.